It’s been a while. What with Christmas, New Year and work commitments, I’ve not had much time to update you all.

So here we go!

Late in 2016 I flew to Holland to shoot a pilot for a potential new puppet TV show. As coordinator and principle puppeteer I had my work cut out for me, but it all went extremely well and everyone involved seemed happy and energized by the end product. It’s a crazy mix of music, adventure and comedy. I look forward to seeing the final product soon.

2016 ended on a high with the broadcast of The Furchester Christmas Special on BBC 1. The show was received extremely well, as have all the new episodes so far. Thank you all so much for watching.

A new batch of episodes started airing on CBEEBIES on February 6th and runs for a few weeks.

The other big bit of news is that the first 2 seasons of the show are now available on NETFLIX in the UK and USA.

This gives our friends in the US a better chance to see it than ever! It’s also broadcasting on THE SPROUT CHANNEL in America if you don’t have access to NETFLIX.

As always there are plenty of episodes still available on the BBC IPLAYER.

The last couple of weeks have been full of activity as we create content for the new Furchester attaction at CBEEBIES LAND/ALTON TOWERS. We’ve been shooting new footage for commercials and the attraction itself, as well as recording the audio for a brand new Furchester adventure. It’s all under wraps at the moment, but I’ll let you know more closer to the opening.

It’s the beginning of the year (just) and the rest of 2017 looks like it could be very exciting. As usual there is very little I can say about ANYTHING at the moment. I’m about to shoot a series of commercials for JAYWING, which will give me a chance to work with the ever brilliant KIM SCOPES again. I’ve worked with her in the past on NEWZOIDS and the music video CHUNKY for the band FORMAT:B.

The new episodes of The Furchester Hotel started airing last week on Cbeebies! And what a busy week it was. Visits from Big Bird and sledging penguins! However, one of my favorite moments was this little musical interlude from Furgus and Elmo. It’s all about the flights of fancy you can have on a top bunk! Having had a bunk bed as a child I can confirm that I spent many hours in the top bunk pretending I was in a space ship.

Just a quick update before things go quiet for a while. I’m off on holiday for a week, and then I’m traveling to Holland to shoot a pilot for a new kids TV show. I can’t say anything about it at the moment, but the puppetry team saw the puppets for the first time this week and we’re all very excited! It’s going to be a fascinating mix of puppetry and CGI. I’ll reveal more when I can.

We shot 51 new episodes this year at Media City UK, and I think it’s safe to say that we are all very proud of them. The first batch of new episodes is airing VERY soon. I’ll keep you posted. But the other good news is that The Furchester has been nominated for an award! We’ve been nominated in the “Best Animation And Puppetry” category at the Royal Television Society North West Awards.

Whoop!

We’re up against some great shows, so fingers crossed!

Hopefully the next time I post I’ll have more to tell you about the pilot in Holland, and I’ll have a Gerry Anderson’s Firestorm update!

Again it’s been a while. The Furchester shoot has ended after 60 days and over 600 hours of studio time. We’re all very proud of the 51 episodes we shot and can’t wait for them to be released into the wild! As far as I know the new episodes will start airing on CBEEBIES around October/November time. I’ll let you know more as and when the information becomes available.

I’m particularly proud of the special Christmas episode.

Since I’ve been back I’ve been catching up with over 4 months of paperwork (boo!) and finishing my tax return (double boo!). However, it’s not all been receipts and invoices. I’m prepping for a short pilot I’m shooting in Holland later next month. It’s still early days, lot’s of time looking at scripts and storyboards, figuring out how many puppeteers we’ll need and how certain shots can be accomplished with the minimum of fuss. Building the foundations for a successful shoot.

The trailer for the pilot minisode of Gerry Anderson’s Firestorm has been released to the Kickstarter backers and, it has to be said, the response has been phenomenal. If this is the reaction we get from the trailer I can’t wait for people to see the full minisode. The trailer will be released to the public soon. More information as and when.

And finally I’ve completed my performance reel! It’s taken a while to get to grips with it but here it is! It’s longer than my Sizzle Reel which was designed to give you an idea of the projects I’ve been involved with. This reel concentrates on a few key scenes that (hopefully) show off my performance skills. I hope you enjoy it! Please feel free to share.

It’s been a while since an update and I apologise. I’m knee deep in production on seasons 3 and 4 of The Furchester Hotel. This will keep me pretty much tied up until late August.

I’m writing a piece about the first block of shooting on the new series and I’ll post that up here as soon as it’s finished.

I’m on a dark week this week so took advantage of the time off to get some new headshots done. Normally I find this experience to be akin to pulling teeth, however, Nicholas Dawkes did a fabulous job. The atmosphere was calm, relaxed and he guided me through the whole process with confidence and humour.

Well, that was a long summer wasn’t it! Apologies for the lack of posts but it’s been a very full few months, mostly because of the kids being home for the holidays and various travels. However, I’m back now and catching up!

Over the last few months we’ve had the Cbeebies Big Day Out with The Furchester Hotel (I’ll post more about that another time) the launch of the Furchester Hotel Magazine, and as of yesterday the new Furchester Hotel DVD is available. I’m also very pleased to say that my Twitter feed hit well over 1000 followers!

Plenty to be getting on with!

The DVD contains 6 episodes of the TV show for your little ones to enjoy and is available at most major outlets. You can also find out about what’s going on at The Furchester Hotel Facebook page!

Over the next few weeks I’ll updating more often and adding more content.

The site has been a little quiet over the last few weeks as I’ve been concentrating on my Twitter account. 920 followers and rising! If you’re one of them thank you so much for your support.

I’ve not been ignoring the website though. If you take a close look at the tabs along the top you will see things have changed slightly. My CV is now a sub section under the “about” banner, which, in my head at least, makes more sense. In it’s place on the main page is a new tab entitled “interviews”.

Over the last year I have been asked to do a number of interviews due to the launch and success of The Furchester Hotel. I decided that these should be placed in a section of their own, rather than being buried in another. At the moment there are 2 interviews available but I will gradually add more over time.

The first is a chat I had with the guys at The Box Set Pod. This was the first long form interview I had ever done, I was EXTREMELY nervous. Luckily the guys were great and made me feel very relaxed. Also my love of TV and geek culture helped me along nicely. I even managed to talk about my love of John Carpenter movies, especially “Big Trouble In Little China.” Not many interviews let you do that!

I had a blast recording the voice over for this in a rather chaotic and exhausting 3 hour session. It’s strange when you get to that point where the line “oh look at that great pile of cakes!” can reduce you to tears of laughter.

I love doing voice over work.

Don’t forget that there are still episodes of The Furchester available on the BBC iplayer. If you are in the USA you can get episodes on iTunes or on the Furchester YouTube channel. Links below!

Now THIS was a fun episode to shoot. Furgus opens a dog-walking service but the dog would rather play chase.

We used the second floor of the Furchester quite a bit on this one. The lobby floor part of the set is raised so the puppeteers can stand up while performing. This give you a fantastic freedom of movement.

No such luck on the second floor. So there was much scooting around while sat on little trolleys. The shots of Furgus walking the dog on the second floor required much coordination of arms, legs, trolleys, cables and monitors.

Turned out great!

Tune in to Cbeebies at 7:35am tomorrow morning to see the result!

This is the last new episode for a little while. Next week we are in repeat mode.